Sunday, November 16, 2014

Russia is having a mental breakdown

Russia prepares nuclear surprise for NATO

On September 1, 2014 the US State Department published a report, in which it was stated that for first time since the collapse of the USSR, Russia reached parity with the US in the field of strategic nuclear weapons. Thus, Washington admitted that Moscow regained the status that the Soviet Union had obtained by mid-70's of the XX century and then lost.According to the report from the State Department, Russia has 528 carriers of strategic nuclear weapons that carry 1,643 warheads. The United States has 794 vehicles and 1,652 nuclear warheads.It just so happens that today, Russia's strategic nuclear forces (SNF) are even more advanced in comparison with those of the US, as they ensure parity on warheads with a significantly smaller number of carriers of strategic nuclear weapons. This gap between Russia and the United States may only grow in the future, given the fact that Russian defense officials promised to rearm Russia's SNF with new generation missiles.The progress was made possible thanks to the treaty on the limitation of nuclear weapons, also known as START-3. The treaty was signed by Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama on 8 April 2010 in Prague (came into force on 5 February 2011). In accordance with the document, nuclear warheads of the parties are to be reduced to 1,550 by 2021. The number of carriers (intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers) is supposed to be cut to 700 units.It was the first strategic agreement, after the treacherous policy of democrats, in which Russia managed to win significant advantages. In the treaty, the Americans, for the first time in history, undertook to reduce their strategic nuclear potential, while Russia won an opportunity to increase it. Furthermore, the new treaty removed important limitations that existed in the previous START 1 and START 2 treaties. It goes about the size of areas for the deployment of mobile ICBMs, the number of multi charge ICBMs, and the possibility to build railway-based ICBMs. Russia did not make any concessions.Having written off Moscow as a serious geopolitical rival, flying on the wings of inaccessible military and technological superiority, Washington drove itself into a trap, from which it does not see a way out even in a medium-term perspective.Recently, a lot has been said about so-called "sixth-generation wars" and high-precision long-range weapons that should ensure victory over enemy without coming into direct contact with its armed forces. This concept is highly questionable (The US failed to achieve victory in such a way both in Iraq and Afghanistan). Yet, this is the point, where Russia enters the parity line as well. The proof is long-range cruise missiles of a new generation that will soon be deployed on submarines of the Black Sea Fleet and missile ships of the Caspian Flotilla.In today's Russia, many find this hard to believe. This is a common belief for many of those, who still enthusiastically remain in captivity of the myths about the absolute "weakness" of Russia and the absolute "superiority" of the West. The myth was made up in the 90's under the influence of Boris Yeltsin and his betrayal of Russian national interests. One has to admit that during that time, the myth was real, if one may say so.Times have changed. One can easily understand the new state of affairs.For example, let's consider the potential of conventional weapons of Russia and the West in the European Theater of Operations (ETO). In this area, it is generally believed that NATO is a lot stronger than Russia. Yet, a first encounter with reality smashes this misbelief into pieces.As is known, the main striking force, the core of combat power of the ground forces is tanks. By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Armed Forces had about 20,000 tanks in the ETO.The Americans, in turn, deployed 6,000 heavy Abrams tanks on the territory of the allied group. Despite this, the combined potential of NATO forces in Europe was still significantly inferior to the Soviet potential. To compensate this imbalance, NATO strategists were forced to resort to tactical nuclear weapons (TNW).In the first half of the 1950s, NATO conducted a research about what kind of forces the bloc should have to show reliable resistance to large-scale ground offensive of superior forces of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries. The calculations showed then that one required at least 96 full-fledged divisions for the purpose. Yet, the cost of armament for one of such divisions exceeded $1 billion. Plus, one required two or three more billion to maintain such a large group of troops and build appropriate infrastructure. This burden was clearly beyond the power of the economy of the West.The solution was found in a move to deploy a group of US tactical nuclear weapons on the continent, and that was done soon. By early 1970s, the US arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons counted about 7,000 units of ammunition. The highest achievement in the area was the creation of weapons of selective action - neutron warheads (for guns of 203-mm and 155-mm caliber, and for Lance missiles) with a capacity from 1 to 10 kilotons. The warheads were seen as the key in combating land forces personnel, particularly Soviet tank crews.Given the nuclear factor, to reflect "Soviet aggression," NATO required to deploy only 30, rather than 96 divisions, and so they were deployed.How do things work in this area now? In early 2013, the Americans withdrew the last group of heavy Abrams tanks from Europe. In NATO countries, over the last 20 years, one new tank would replace 10-15 old, yet still capable, tanks. At the same time, Russia was not decommissioning its tanks.As a result, today Russia is the absolute leader in this regard. In mid-2014, the balance of the Defense Ministry had as many as 18,177 tanks (T-90 - 400 pcs., T-72B - 7,144 pcs., T-80 - 4,744 pcs, T-64 - 4,000 pcs, T-62 - 689 pcs, and T-55 - 1200 pcs.).Of course, only a few thousand tanks are deployed in permanent readiness units, and most of them remain at storage bases. Yet, NATO has the same picture. Therefore, the decisive superiority of Russian tanks has not gone anywhere since the times of the USSR.Here is another surprise. As for tactical nuclear weapons, the superiority of modern-day Russia over NATO is even stronger.The Americans are well aware of this. They were convinced before that Russia would never rise again. Now it's too late.To date, NATO countries have only 260 tactical nuclear weapons in the ETO. The United States has 200 bombs with a total capacity of 18 megatons. They are located on six air bases in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. France has 60 more atomic bombs. That is pretty much it. Russia, according to conservative estimates, has 5,000 pieces of different classes of TNW - from Iskander warheads to torpedo, aerial and artillery warheads! The US has 300 tactical B-61 bombs on its own territory, but this does not change the situation against the backdrop of such imbalance. The US is unable to improve it either, as it has destroyed the "Cold War legacy" - tactical nuclear missiles, land-based missiles and nuclear warheads of sea-based Tomahawk cruise missiles.Continue to Part II

86 comments:

The tone in the Russian media is simply getting scary. Paranoia is never far below the surface in Russia and I felt it on my last visit there twenty years ago. I was not sure if it was meant to be ironic humor or the real deal. I was astounded by some of the conversations that I heard while I was there, conversations about this plot and that. It was somewhat amusing to me as I was firmly in the camp that we won, they lost. I am no longer amused.

There is no moral equivalency between the US and Israel. Most of Israel’s public policies would get US politicians jailed if they tried it here. Israel has two de facto sets of laws, one for the Jews and quite another for all others. Israel is anathema to civil rights and procedures. Israel’s very survival is tethered to their intimidated eunuchs in the US Conga line. This is the face of the real Israel:

“Israel has permanently banned Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert from entering Gaza. He told RT that he has become “a great problem for the Israeli government” because he documents the atrocities he sees in Palestine.”

" Most of Israel’s public policies would get US politicians jailed if they tried it here."

Really, can you cite ONE?

" Israel has two de facto sets of laws, one for the Jews and quite another for all others."

israeli citizens are under the same law.

PERIOD.

" Israel is anathema to civil rights and procedures"

really, could you CITE ONE EXAMPLE of HOW it is an anathema to civil rights and procedures?

“Israel has permanently banned Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert from entering Gaza. He told RT that he has become “a great problem for the Israeli government” because he documents the atrocities he sees in Palestine.”

So Pravda sets the level of "truth"? Oh yeah, how does Russia deal with reporters?

Dr. Gilbert is a former member of the fringe left Red Party in Norway, which has its roots in the country’s Communist Party. Gilbert stood as the Red Party’s candidate in local elections in the town ofTromsoe in 2007.

In addition, the centrality of his ideology was highlighted in comments following Al-Qaida’s terrorist attacks on USA on September 11, 2001, in which Dr Gilbert expressed sympathy with the terrorists. Days after the atrocity, in an interview for the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet Gilbert said “The attack on New York did not come as a surprise after the policy that the West has led during the last decades…The oppressed also have a moral right to attack the USA with any weapon they can come up with.” When asked directly in the same interview, “Do you support a terror attack against the USA?,” Gilbert replied, “Terror is a bad weapon but the answer is yes within the context which I have mentioned.”

Russia is placing civilian flights at risk by dispatching jet fighters and bombers into European airspace without following safety procedures, according to Nato’s secretary general.

Jens Stoltenberg told the Telegraph that Nato fighters had intercepted Russian military aircraft over 100 times so far this year, compared with 30 such incidents in 2013.

Russia’s long-range bombers and spy planes usually stay in international airspace, but they deliberately ignore safeguards designed to reduce the risk of collision with civilian flights. In particular, they switch off the “transponders” that allow aircraft to detect one another.“They have increased their military air activity along Nato’s borders,” said Mr Stoltenberg. “We have done what we are supposed to do: we have intercepted them, partly because of increased air policing.”He added: “The problem is that many of the Russian pilots don’t turn on their transponders, they don’t file their flight plans and they don’t communicate with civilian air traffic control. This poses a risk to civilian air traffic and therefore this is a problem, especially when the Russian activity increases – because they have more Russian military planes in the air.”

In March, a Boeing 737 from Scandinavian Airlines came within a split second of colliding with a Russian spy plane. The airliner, carrying 132 passengers, had just taken off from Copenhagen on a routine flight to Rome when it passed within 300 feet of a Russian IL-20 surveillance aircraft.

The intruder had switched off its transponders and failed to contact air traffic control. Only the quick reaction of the Scandinavian Airlines pilot – and the fact that the incident occurred in daylight and in good visibility – prevented a near miss from becoming a disaster.Mr Stoltenberg urged Russia to obey the “norms” of flying in crowded airspace. “It’s not illegal to fly military planes in international airspace,” he said. “But it’s not in accordance with good norms to do it without communicating with civilian air traffic control.”“They are posing a risk and that’s the reason why we would like them to turn on their transponders, to file their flight plans and to communicate with civilian air traffic control, especially since the number of Russian planes has increased.”

Almost every week, formations of Russian bombers probe the borders of European countries, testing the reaction times of their potential adversaries and, on occasion, carrying out mock attacks.

Britain is responsible for policing thousands of square miles of airspace over the Atlantic and the North Sea. The most recent known incident occurred on Oct 29 when RAF Typhoon fighters intercepted two Russian TU-95 Bear bombers approaching over the North Sea. Both turned back before reaching British airspace.

Mads Gilbert yesterday was denied entry into Israel to travel to Gaza.

The crime, the civil rights violation, the gall of Israel to deny this Israel hating, Jew hating prick of a Doctor, who has no rights to travel INTO Israel and has a of history anti-israel acclaim to USE Israel's infrastructure to go to Gaza to trash israel.

I suggest Mads Gilbert to travel to Egypt and go to gaza from there.

Oh wait, Egypt has shut down all people from gaza for the last 3 weeks...

Paranoia is never far below the surface in Russia and I felt it on my last visit there twenty years ago.

It's been there for centuries. Huge and surrounded by great powers (Japan, China, Ottomans, Europe) their expansion and absorption of surrounding states for use as buffers against these powers was driven more by fear than the need for conquest.

I'm unfamiliar with the guy and the questions are so broad that it is hard to make a real judgment about his theories based on an article in the Guardian. Diamond has been described as being a generalist who oversimplifies, not a good thing. On the other hand, some of his arguments as described in the article are on their face compelling.

Where I would reserve the most criticism; however, is for some of his critics, scientists themselves, who offer up criticism of him based on their views of collective moral guilt and the idealistic idea of the 'noble savage'.

Getting to the economical mass production of steel took the genius of an "Old, Dead, White Guy", Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie's accomplishment was not an accident, rather the result of the stubborn application of the "Scientific Method", an indisputably Western intellectual feat.

Voltaire and I both agree that J. J. Rousseau was a fool. Sadly, fools and village idiots have often captured the imagination of the public, with tragically predictable outcomes (See WWI).

“Deuce ☂Sun Nov 16, 12:46:00 PM ESTIf a Jewish teenager throws stones, what is the punishment and do IDF bulldozers take town the homes of Jewish criminals?”

The only reports I have seen of Jews throwing stones is at other Jews – usually at the buses of women trying to pray at the Wall. If you have seen otherwise, please link in some way.

The homes of generic “criminals” are not razed. The homes of terrorists are. When a Jew drives a van into Judea and/or Samaria, for instance, and purposefully runs down pedestrians, an answer to your question will be forthcoming. I know of no such case, but feel free to enlighten me.

I define “terrorist” as a Muslim, for example, who cuts the throat of a young Israeli woman on a street in Jerusalem to make a political statement.

Being a proponent of capital punishment for homicide, I personally find the razing of real estate an effeminate response to murder. A bullet and a box would be my preference. I could be convinced of the efficacy of hanging, I suppose, but see no point in the melodrama and the waste of good building material better used in Gaza.

The homes of generic “criminals” are not razed. The homes of terrorists are.

Even if true, when you are destroying the homes of family members or relatives it is called collective punishment and goes against international law. And in fact it is not entirely true. Israel also destroys the homes of 'suspected' terrorists before they have access to due process.

The practice was widespread in Israel after the 2nd Intifada but it was halted a few years back when it was thought to be counter-productive. Naturally, we can leave it to Bibi to bring it back.

Examples?

Just google in 'Israel destroys the homes of suspected terrorists.

I suspect that 'suspected' is a rather loose term when used by the IDF and the current government.

Even if true, when you are destroying the homes of family members or relatives it is called collective punishment and goes against international law. And in fact it is not entirely true. Israel also destroys the homes of 'suspected' terrorists before they have access to due process.

You obviously didn't take my advise and Just google in 'Israel destroys the homes of suspected terrorists.

I just did. Had you done so, on the first page you would have found numerous articles on the issue most of them having to do with the 3 youths killed in June although there is also a Wiki page and articles talking about the history of the practice in Israel.

The articles tell a different story than you are suggesting. If you like, you can check or if you like I can give you some quotes with links. I doubt you will look for either, however. Yesterday we talked about 'confirmation bias'.

I make mistakes but I usually wouldn't make a statement like I did without having done the original research.

As its war in Gaza against Hamas died down in August, the Israeli army destroyed two homes and sealed a third with cement in the West Bank in retaliation against the three Palestinians it suspected were involved in the youths’ kidnapping and murder. (One of the three, Hussam Qawasmeh, has now been charged.) Several weeks earlier it demolished the West Bank home of a Palestinian indicted in the killing of a Jewish police officer in Hebron

Quirk, maybe you are correct. Israel should not demolish suspects homes. I'd bet a better more american solution would be to take the entire town and relocate them to a reservation and then level the town. Think of how America solved the Indian problem.

You will recall that when Bibi let the case of the three youths killed in the WB by the 3 Palestinians stew for three weeks for political purposes, it resulted in stirring up public outrage to the point that three Israelis kidnapped a Palestinian kid, Abu Khdeir, beat him up, forced gasoline down his throat and set him on fire while still alive.

This from one of the articles on the same google page I suggested you read,

Photos and story from Reuters

The government of Israel says it will treat the July 2 abduction and murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian boy, the same way it treats terrorism against Jews. The killers “will face the full weight of the law,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Sunday. “We do not differentiate between the terrorists.”

To this, Muhammad’s parents have issued a simple challenge: Prove it. Demolish the homes of the Jews who murdered him.

Are the three Israelis 'terrorists' or murderers. If the latter, how do you distinguish the difference between them and the three Palestinians. Surely, it is not because of the nature of the crime. Dead is dead but still...

As far as I know the parents are still waiting for their answer.

Destroying the homes is one issue. The other is the punishment. We know one of the Palestinians is in jail. His home was cemented up as I recall. The other two were killed by the Israeli military. The trial for the Israelis who killed the Palestinians youth may take a while. While confessing that they were also looking for additional victims it is likely that the trial will be delayed due to competency hearings. It seems one of them is now claiming he is the "Messiah".

Speculation is that if his boasts prove true, this could be the trial of the century. Questions abound as to whether the man's father will be called as witness to vouch for his character.

You will notice in almost all of the recent instances (those on that google page) the homes were destroyed before the suspects had received due process. Destroying the homes didn't affect the perps, it affected their immediate and extended families.. It wasn't done to punish the perps. It was meant as an object lesson, a deterrence. Israel had judged back in 2005 that the practice was counter-productive but Bibi in his wisdom decided the Palestinians needed some more lessons.

You might think it is a great idea. I disagree. And as I mentioned above it is collective punishment which is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.

“The end of genius. The label, which once conveyed the supposed superiority of white European males, has outlived its usefulness...”http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/from-isaac-newton-to-the-genius-bar

The unthinking acceptance of this premise is why we find ourselves ruled by mediocrities at every turn. Without fear of contradiction, I wager this book is a very expensive piece of required reading for an imprisoned gaggle of college freshmen, somewhere.

In the past seven or more years, Israel has besieged, tormented, and regularly attacked the Gaza Strip. The pretexts change: they elected Hamas; they refused to be docile; they refused to recognize Israel; they fired rockets; they built tunnels to circumvent the siege; and on and on. But each pretext is a red herring, because the truth of ghettos—what happens when you imprison 1.8 million people in a hundred and forty square miles, about a third of the area of New York City, with no control of borders, almost no access to the sea for fishermen (three out of the twenty kilometres allowed by the Oslo accords), no real way in or out, and with drones buzzing overhead night and day—is that, eventually, the ghetto will fight back. It was true in Soweto and Belfast, and it is true in Gaza. We might not like Hamas or some of its methods, but that is not the same as accepting the proposition that Palestinians should supinely accept the denial of their right to exist as a free people in their ancestral homeland.

This is precisely why the United States’ support of current Israeli policy is folly. Peace was achieved in Northern Ireland and in South Africa because the United States and the world realized that they had to put pressure on the stronger party, holding it accountable and ending its impunity. Northern Ireland and South Africa are far from perfect examples, but it is worth remembering that, to achieve a just outcome, it was necessary for the United States to deal with groups like the Irish Republican Army and the African National Congress, which engaged in guerrilla war and even terrorism. That was the only way to embark on a road toward true peace and reconciliation. The case of Palestine is not fundamentally different.

In 1982, in a quest to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization and extinguish Palestinian nationalism, Israel invaded Lebanon, killing seventeen thousand people, mostly civilians. Since the late nineteen-eighties, when Palestinians under occupation rose up, mostly by throwing stones and staging general strikes, Israel has arrested tens of thousands of Palestinians: over seven hundred and fifty thousand people have spent time in Israeli prisons since 1967, a number that amounts to forty per cent of the adult male population today. They have emerged with accounts of torture, which are substantiated by human-rights groups like B’tselem. During the second intifada, which began in 2000, Israel reinvaded the West Bank (it had never fully left). The occupation and colonization of Palestinian land continued unabated throughout the “peace process” of the nineteen-nineties, and continues to this day. And yet, in America, the discussion ignores this crucial, constantly oppressive context, and is instead too often limited to Israeli “self-defense” and the Palestinians’ supposed responsibility for their own suffering

As Netanyahu’s own words show, however, Israel will accept nothing short of the acquiescence of Palestinians to their own subordination. It will accept only a Palestinian “state” that is stripped of all the attributes of a real state: control over security, borders, airspace, maritime limits, contiguity, and, therefore, sovereignty. The twenty-three-year charade of the “peace process” has shown that this is all Israel is offering, with the full approval of Washington. Whenever the Palestinians have resisted that pathetic fate (as any nation would), Israel has punished them for their insolence. This is not new.

Punishing Palestinians for existing has a long history. It was Israel’s policy before Hamas and its rudimentary rockets were Israel’s boogeyman of the moment, and before Israel turned Gaza into an open-air prison, punching bag, and weapons laboratory. In 1948, Israel killed thousands of innocents, and terrorized and displaced hundreds of thousands more, in the name of creating a Jewish-majority state in a land that was then sixty-five per cent Arab. In 1967, it displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians again, occupying territory that it still largely controls, forty-seven years later.

What Israel is doing in Gaza now is collective punishment. It is punishment for Gaza’s refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in responding to Israel’s siege and its provocations with resistance, armed or otherwise, after Israel repeatedly reacted to unarmed protest with crushing force. Despite years of ceasefires and truces, the siege of Gaza has never been lifted.

That is more accurate an assessment than the whitewash we get here from the Israeli apologists.

The Palestinian leadership calls for war and the death of Jews. Then they and you whine and cry when the result leads, as must inevitably be the case, to collateral damage. By the way, the Palestinians do not inflict collateral damage; every Jew, man, woman, child, is a target.

“It is time to honestly admit that Israeli society is ill – and it is our duty to treat this disease,”Rivlin told the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities on Sunday at a conference titled “From Xenophobia to Accepting the Other.”“The tension between Jews and Arabs within the State of Israel has risen to record heights, and the relationship between all parties has reached a new low,” he said. “We have all witnessed the shocking sequence of incidents and violence taking place by both sides. The epidemic of violence is not limited to one sector or another, it permeates every area and doesn’t skip any arena. There is violence in soccer stadiums as well as in the academia. There is violence in the social media and in everyday discourse, in hospitals and in schools.”

It’s worth listening carefully when Netanyahu speaks to the Israeli people. What is going on in Palestine today is not really about Hamas. It is not about rockets. It is not about “human shields” or terrorism or tunnels. It is about Israel’s permanent control over Palestinian land and Palestinian lives.

Fatah officials made repeated statements in recent weeks praising deadly terror attacks on Israelis, and calling for “blood” to “purify” Jerusalem of Jews.

The calls for violence came amid a series of terror attacks over the last month that left six Israelis dead and dozens injured.

According to Palestinian Media Watch, in a message broadcast November 7 on the Palestinian Authority’s official television channel PA TV, the head of the Media Department for Fatah in Lebanon Muhammad al-Biqa’i praised the Palestinians who carried out three recent terror attacks that killed four Israelis and left a rabbi in critical condition.

Al-Biqa’i sent a blessing of “praise and esteem” to Abdelrahman al-Shaludi, Ibrahim al-Akary, and Mu’taz Hijazi, according to a translation provided by PMW.

“They are the ones who heard the call of Yasser Arafat, while the Arab and Islamic nation ignored his call: ‘Millions of martyrs (shahids) are marching to Jerusalem,'” al-Biqa’i said. “They came out with their weapons, with their true belief that Jerusalem needs blood to purify itself of Jews.”

Last week, a representative of the PA Ministry of Religious Affairs called on Palestinians to “rush to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices and blood.”

In a speech reported in al-Hayat al-Jadidah on Friday, official Hassan al-Saifi said that “Jerusalem has no need of declarations or religious rulings, but rather needs the religious scholars in particular to fulfill their duty, rush to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices and blood.”

Anti-Jewish sentiments were also expressed by the host of a popular game show broadcast on PA TV on November 9. The host praised the same three terrorists for their attacks, referring to them as “heroic martyrs of Jerusalem” and also recalled Kheir Hamdan, an Israeli-Arab man shot dead by police after he attacked a squad car with a knife.

“Greetings and honor to our heroic martyrs, the martyrs of Jerusalem — Hijazi, al-Shaludi, al-Akary, and lately also Kheir Hamdan from Kafr Kanna,” the host said. “Our greetings to the martyrs’ families. We stand submissive and humbled in view of what you gave and sacrificed. You are confronting the ever-aggressive settler herds in the streets of Jerusalem.”

On October 22, al-Shaludi drove his car into a Jerusalem Light Rail station, killing three-month-old Israeli-American Chaya Zissel Braun and Karen Yemima Muscara, 22, of Ecuador. Seven other were also injured in the attack. Al-Shaloudi was shot by police as he tried to flee the scene and died of his wounds in hospital.

A week later, Mu’taz Hijazi, a member of Islamic Jihad and a formerly released prisoner, shot Rabbi Yehudah Glick — a prominent activist who campaigns for Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount — outside the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. Glick was seriously wounded, but survived the attack. Hijazi was killed by police during a gunfight hours after the attack.

On November 5, al-Akari drove his car into a different light rail stop, killing two people and injuring another 13. He was shot and killed by police during the attack.

Last week, two Israelis were killed in stabbing attacks by Palestinians on the same day.

Israel Defense Forces soldier Almog Shiloni was stabbed to death in Tel Aviv; and 26-year-old Dalia Lemkus was killed outside the Alon Shvut settlement in the West Bank last Monday.

Israel has deployed hundreds of police reinforcements to the capital in recent weeks in response to the unrest in East Jerusalem, which has also spread to the West Bank and Arab communities across Israel, raising fears of a new Palestinian uprising.

The Temple Mount — known to Muslims as the al-Aqsa compound — which is the holiest site in Judaism, and the third-holiest in Islam, has also been the source of increased tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.

“It is time to honestly admit that Israeli society is ill – and it is our duty to treat this disease,”Rivlin told the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities on Sunday at a conference titled“From Xenophobia to Accepting the Other.”

Researchers found that patients with Alzheimer’s had higher amounts of the inactive... Read MoreBy Megan Scudellari

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) – A new blood test for Alzheimer’s appears to detect the disease as many as 10 years before clinical diagnosis is possible -- far sooner than other tests in development.

The test, described publicly for the first time yesterday, could soon be used to identify and treat patients with Alzheimer’s earlier in their disease progression. Those people could participate in clinical trials to help find new treatments. Already, the test distinguishes between patients and healthy elderly with 100 percent accuracy.

“We will need replication and validation, but I’m very optimistic this work will hold,” Dimitrios Kapogiannis, the study’s lead author and a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging, said after a presentation at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Washington yesterday..............

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.